Perfect Recall
(ANN BEATTIE)
Ann Beattie''s work has been said to embody everything from postmodern
realism to journalistic sensibilities to romantic neorealism. Those labels are
for literary critics to fight over. What her stories nearly always portray are
the emotional permutations of her characters'' relationships, played out amid
perfectly detailed landscapes -- hence the realism tag. What lifts her work
above these labels is her ability to take the reader beyond what is shown. For
more than two decades, Beattie has refined this skill; in December, PEN will
present her with the Bernard
Malamud Prize for lifetime
achievement in the short story form as reward.
Perfect Recall,
Beattie''s latest collection, continues to mine the same vein. What she writes
about in these stories, she has covered before: characters struggling with
spouses, illness or unmet personal expectations. Her characters are mostly
urbane professionals with a taste for good food and witty conversation.
Family gatherings and holidays take center stage in this collection, though
sometimes Beattie''s characters have created their own families, as in the
funny, yet poignant story, The Famous
Poet, Amid Bougainvillea. Others have married into dysfunctional
stepfamilies (The Women of this World), while others merely have myriad aunts
and uncles (Coydog) to muddle through. All are familiar, and that is why,
despite her characters'' wealth -- or sudden lack of it -- readers can find much
to glean in this collection, particularly coming, as it does, immediately after
the family gatherings that define the holidays.
In these stories, unlike the earlier short story collections with which
Beattie made her literary reputation, the author expands her ear for language.
These works are longer, more complex and funnier than the spare, poetic short
stories she wrote 20 years ago. Beattie shows, however, no less compassion for
her characters, who long for things they no longer have whether it be health,
love, happiness or just an understanding of the places where they now find
themselves.
Resumos Relacionados
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- I, Robot
- The Turning
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- The Elephant Vanishes : Stories
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